{"id":8716,"date":"2013-05-27T10:34:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T17:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=8716"},"modified":"2013-05-27T10:34:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T17:34:52","slug":"which-came-first-the-fiction-or-the-blog-by-annmarie-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/27\/which-came-first-the-fiction-or-the-blog-by-annmarie-miles\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Came First – The Fiction or the Blog? by Annmarie Miles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"What<\/a>Today’s article by a new contributor, Annmarie Miles, discusses the important ways in which blogging and writing your piece of fiction can work with each other to produce amazing results. Which came first for you? The fiction or the blog?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Every so often the discussion floats around about whether all bloggers are writers and whether all writers are authors.<\/strong> I don\u2019t think the categories are as clear cut as that. But I personally don\u2019t consider myself an author\u2026 yet; as I haven\u2019t written a book.<\/p>\n

These days most authors who are social media savvy have a blog. I know some authors who have resisted the idea of becoming \u2018bloggers\u2019. It\u2019s not like they don\u2019t have enough writing to be doing. But authors I\u2019ve spoken to who have a blog, do see the benefits of it. We\u2019ve looked before at the careful balance we need to have when blogging about our WIP<\/a>. But what if it happens the other way around?<\/p>\n

What if you\u2019re a blogger first and the author in you comes later?<\/strong> This is the way it has happened for me. I\u2019ve only been writing fiction for about a year and during that time was not sure that I had a \u2018novel\u2019 in me.<\/strong> I can write a hundred 500-word blog posts no problem, but I\u2019d never be able to write 50,000 words (\u201chuh?\u201d<\/i> I know, I know \u2013 it makes no sense).<\/p>\n

However my recent blogging project has made me see things differently. I took part in the AtoZ Blogging Challenge<\/a>\u00a0during April. This is where you blog from every day in April (with Sundays off) using the letters of the alphabet each day as your only prompt.<\/p>\n

More than 1600 bloggers completed the challenge and it was a great experience. I got to connect with bloggers from all over the world and I also got great feedback on the posts I was writing. I had thought to write a series of miscellaneous posts but at the last minute changed my mind and decided to use the challenge to work on a character I\u2019d started to develop called \u2018Lizzy\u2019. I also decided to let her speak for herself. So what did I learn? <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n